thenexttodie wrote:If you never existed would it still be wrong to rape a child?

Stupid question, and it tells me you didn't bother reading the linked article. You can do better than that.

Wrong? Useless term.[/quote]

I have read your article. I don't how you can say wrong is a useless term in a discussion on morality. You used it 5 times in your own article you linked to.

You define Morality as a broad agreement that we should not unnecessarily inflict harm upon one another. Ok. Not that I disagree with your definition but I was just wondering if you believe if it actually possible to fullfill this standard. That we do not unnecessarily harm each other?

Your disscussion;

hackenslash wrote:"We can agree that harm is caused when one of us kills another. We can agree that harm is caused when one of us rapes another, or steals from another. Some of these are not set in stone (well, unless you're of a particular theological persuasion). There are many moral dilemmas littering the ethics literature that show that it isn't always easy to spot what a right action is in a given situation. For example, is it immoral to lie? Yes? Is it wrong to lie to a Gestapo officer about the Jewish family hiding under your floorboards, knowing that revealing them will lead to their deaths?

I'm sorry to disappoint you but I have heard this all before in various Christian church sermons.

“..the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him.” Tolstoy

Again I must apologize for my inattention to this forum of late. I promise will monitor more closely from now on.

MatthewLee wrote:

AronRa wrote: we have perilously similar concepts occurring in the oldest myths known to man, which were written by the very grandfathers of the Biblical authors, whose familiar version doesn't appear in the Bible until more than a thousand years later. If the Bible did not not borrow these concepts from all the old myths of Semitic ancestry, then where do you imagine they came from? That's a serious question deserving an answer.

I have thought on this question for most of the day because it seems to cut right to the heart of the issue. Very insightful and incisive. What differentiates these ideas from the Bible narrative? The ideas could have been plagiarized or they could have been used because they were universal and easily understood symbols which opened deep and meaningful metaphors. How do we know which it was? in other words... does the fact that "Free Willy" has a whale in it mean that it was plagiarized from "Moby Dick?"

I would have thought Free Willy had more in common with Flying Wild, Roots, or Born Free. It doesn't matter what the animal is. That one thing is the ONLY thing in common between the two you just mentioned, and your answer ignore the fact that all the elder fables already existed in Semitic mythos long before the newer versions of those same stories appeared in the Bible, adapted to the new god of the new religion.

Genesis' creation narrative isn't written for geniuses, that's for sure. It's written for bronze age sheep herders who didn't exactly speak French. Much of it was a completely metaphorical narrative meant to explain things far more complex than the mind of man even today can fully grasp and so it had to contain things that would have had meaning to them when read aloud. The modern tendency to believe it literally robs it of all the power it has because if it's literal there's no metaphor and it's ridiculous. The metaphors are meant to carry a powerful lot of information in a small space.

I get that. One of the leading evolutionary scientists for a long time was Dr Robert T Bakker, who held PhDs from Harvard and Johns Hopkins. Yet he was also a Pentacostal preacher who taught that to read the Bible literally deprived it of it's true meaning. That said though, we still have to acknowledge the fact that virtually nothing in those parables is literally or even figuratively true. I mean, we could say that the fable of the Garden of Eden was a parable about men should consider women as the bringers of civilization, which was an interpretation that made sense to me, and that it reflects the idea that "you can never go home again" or return to child-like innocence of mere animal intelligence. But otherwise everything about that story has only mislead and enslaved people. There's just no justification for prettying up the text so much that there's no actual truth to be found in it anymore.

And still, Adam was obviously based on a composite of Adapa and Enki while Eve was based on a compilation of Ninti and Lilith.

The Creation parts aside, the fall of man is a deep and significant explanation of the human condition and of free will. Free will is what differentiates us from the animals... can an animal actually do evil?

I have to adhere to rigid precise definitions within the precise context we're talking about, and I've never heard a better description of evil than the one proposed by Scott Clifton.

"A particular action or choice is moral or right if it somehow promotes happiness, well-being, or health, or if it somehow minimizes unnecessary harm or suffering or both. A particular action or choice is immoral or wrong if it somehow diminishes happiness, well-being, or health, or if it somehow causes unnecessary harm or suffering or both."

Here we have an objective standard for what good and evil are. Have animals caused harm unnecessarily? Yes, on a few occasions, that has been shown to happen. According to the sacred stories, God has committed evil several times too.

Can an animal be held morally culpable for breaking a rule? Even smart ones are still just called "wild" animals unable to be charged with a crime... they are animals. We have 99% similar DNA to a chimpanzee but we will never try one in a court of law for murder... even the one that ripped that poor woman's face off.

The reason why we won't is because the punishment does no good if the criminal doesn't know why or even that he is being punished, which completely refutes the garden of Eden fable, since Adam and Eve were forbidden to learn right from wrong.

Have you never noticed the similarities that story has with the tale of Prometheus and Pandora? They're very nearly the same thing, but with the Christian crucifixion thrown in several centuries before the story of Jesus.

Humans on the other hand are morally culpable so what is different? That's where the tree of knowledge of good and evil comes in. We were just like everything else... walking about naked and multiplying with abandon and not really thinking about the right and the wrong until we were given a rule. Once we were given a rule we were given the choice to break it we were given the ability to learn what free will was. We made a choice and that choice had consequences...but this is the story of not just a literal man and woman it's the story of the first self-aware humans. It's a definition of free will and what makes it free... you have two choices: one is seductive and pleasurable but leads to death and the other is following the rules and living. We had God's will already and we knew the Good. We had to be tempted by an equally attractive choice to be able to actually make a meaningful choice between good and evil. Enter temptation via a serpent and a tasty fruit. Why did we need free will? Why does any father want children? Could you just buy a bunch of robots and consider them your kids or do you want a self aware being... one more... in your own image?

We had no choice, because in that story we didn't have free will until we ate the forbidden fruit. We had no knowledge of right or wrong before then. So you can't call it free will. At most we were naive enough to believe the one character in that fable who didn't lie. Not that even God lied in that story, but the serpent told the truth.

When you google temptation the first image hit... at least when I did it... is this image...

The metaphor holds even today for the sign of temptation and that is because the symbols are universal. Trees bear fruit. The tree of life bore fruit that grants life and to be in the garden and enjoy the benefits of this tree, you had to follow the rules and not break them. Breaking them even once resulted in death because that's sin. If you never eat the fruit of the tree you only know good. If you break the rule and eat the fruit you know both good and evil and realize that you can do either if you choose... you become morally culpable because you understand right from wrong. God says 'they have become one like us' which means there are self-aware and non-self aware beings and we had just joined the host.

Inanna's tree conveyed none of that message to me. There was no temptation in her garden. It was just a tree which harbored some unsavory characters, one of which was a serpent who was immune to spells. The fruit was immaterial because the tree was just going to become furniture anyway, lol. The story in the poem with Gilgamesh was more of an entertaining narrative to me which perhaps would have spoken more to me if I had spoken the language and lived in the time. It was telling a story whose shades of meaning have been grayed by history. It left no metaphor or meaning with me speaking of greater truth.

External to that: The meaning of a tree is universal, it bears fruit. Jesus even talks about the fruit a tree bears... judge a tree by it's fruit for example. Serpents are naturally shifty symbols of things we fear that mean to poison us. The serpent is not to be trusted no matter what age you live in... they mean you harm and it's in their nature. If one talks to you, you probably shouldn't trust him. And you should get medication because even in the wizarding world, hearing voices isn't good.

The garden was the temptation. She was trespassing. The other irrelevant elements were added later, and these already familiar original elements were changed to adapt to a new metaphor.

AronRa wrote:The idea of the snake being female didn't come from this fable but rather from a Talmudic legend, which itself was adapted from this story, and then adapted again by the Jews, before being accommodated by Medieval Christians. In that story, the serpent wasn't just a companion of Lilith's but an incarnation of hers: returning to seek vengeance against the younger woman, Eve. This is why virtually every rendering by all the Christian artists of the Renaissance depict the serpent in the garden as a woman.

You are correct about the Talmudic legend, but Talmud is not really Scripture. It doesn't alter or supersede Torah, I don't think... [/quote]No, it was meant to clarify the Tanakh, what you call the Old Testament.

I was always told that if you want to understand why the Talmud was written then ask a Jew how they atone for sin now that their temple has been destroyed and they can no longer make animal sacrifices. They will start to perserverate on the Torah and how it doesn't really say what it says and then go through mental gymnastics which eventually result in a Talmud.

I'm sure you were told that, by another Christian, and that you haven't actually attempted that experiment. I learned a long time ago that if you want to know what a Mormon or a Hindu believes, don't ask a Baptist, because they don't know and will only lie to you.

No messiah, no temple: no atonement and no salvation. It's an inescapable truth of their own Scripture.

That's not the truth at all. I don't know about the rest of it, but they definitely have a messiah. They wrote the basis of your Bible, remember? They laid out the criteria for their messianic savior therein, and Jesus failed to meet any of those requirements.

To my knowledge, temporally, the Talmud was also composed at the very least 800 years after even the most pessimistic scholar might date the final compilation of the Torah.

You're talking about what was originally practiced as the oral torah, when the Tanakh (Old Testament) was called the written Torah.

There is nothing in Scripture which called the serpent Satan and nothing that calls it Lilith either, as far I have ever read.

Believers often read into their scriptures things it does not say and ignore much of what it does say. The paintings absolutely indicate what you say with female serpents. I can't say why this is, but it isn't Biblical. It is also isn't Biblical to worship and idolize Mary or to be able to buy forgiveness of sins from the pope in scroll form but boy the Catholics sure did a lot of that. I don't always understand why people interpret things the way they do.[/quote]Yet Catholicism and Orthodoxy were the foundation of the modern Christian belief, and Christians since then have adopted another legend which you admit isn't Biblical either.

I watched the Noah's Ark video you linked by the way. Very interesting. Your conclusions were not in error and well supported given the premise you started with. I think the attempt to date the flood by the scholar was entirely in error.

I find it interesting, however, how many flood myths there are. This is another case of plagiarism vs something everyone would understand... The flood myths were in cultures all over the world that had little or no contact.

And had very little similarity because the most obvious exaggeration any child with no knowledge of scripture would likely have invented on his own.

Perhaps there was a flood.

There was never a global flood. We know that much for certain.

Perhaps we need to read more carefully. That's what I hear in a lot of your work... the implication that I need to put my nose in the Book and see for myself rather than believing the interpretation of people who believe dinosaurs walked with men. For that, all Christians should thank you.

:

"Faith means not wanting to know what is true." - Friedrich Nietzsche. "Faith is believing what you know ain't so." - Mark Twain

AronRa wrote:And still, Adam was obviously based on a composite of Adapa and Enki while Eve was based on a compilation of Ninti and Lilith.

That has been refuted by scholars, it is just a results of “creative neat picking” one can also read the gospels and use the same type of “creative neat picking” to infer that Dragon Ball (the cartoon) was based on the gospels. After all the God “Kami-sama” was born from a virgin, had 12 disciples, came to earth in form of a human, was 3 entities in 1 created food with supernatural powers, was murdered, resurrected etc.

But obviously these parallels don’t prove plagiarism, everybody understands that these are coincidences and that anyone who has seen the cartoon and read the gospels would know that the stories are completely different and independent.

But Even if Adam and Adapa where the same person, I don’t understand why would that help to falsify the bible, if the bible was reporting real events in real history, finding other independent documents reporting the same events would help verify the historicity and reliability of the bible.

AronRa wrote:Again I must apologize for my inattention to this forum of late. I promise will monitor more closely from now on.

I'm glad to continue the discussion. It is very engaging and I'm grateful for the time which I know must be busy given the schedule you must keep to make so many videos. I myself have only had time to write this very long post over several sessions but what I am getting out of it is a lot of opportunity to study and think and that's worth a lot to me. I have a quite limited schedule and I come to enjoy the time I spend in these forums. There are some really impressive brains here.

AronRa wrote: I would have thought Free Willy had more in common with Flying Wild, Roots, or Born Free. It doesn't matter what the animal is. That one thing is the ONLY thing in common between the two you just mentioned, and your answer ignore the fact that all the elder fables already existed in Semitic mythos long before the newer versions of those same stories appeared in the Bible, adapted to the new god of the new religion.

That is really funny... I would never have thought to tie Roots to Free Willy but now I kind of see it. That's pretty awesome. I wouldn't say it on national TV but it's really, really funny.

Some of the elder legends absolutely shared details with the Bible. Like the Utnapishtim story is absolutely a completely similar parallel to Noah's ark with uncanny likeness. It could indicate that Israel had absolutely made contact with the nations who knew this myth, perhaps. It definitely could be plagiarized and that is one hypothesis. It could also be multiple cultures reexplaining the same events from their worldview which is really what you and I do.

For example I concede something else to you in a limited way... When you say Magic and Miracles mean the same thing you are correct. In an atheistic, purely metaphysical naturalist worldview don't supernatural phenomena all fall under the same umbrella of either charlatanry or outright deception explainable by more reasonable means? The definition of magic and miracles must be the same when an atheist says them because in a world with no God or gods there are no miracles or magic (excluding the kind that Houdini did)... there's just what's there... that's if I understand some of your worldview.

When a Christian says Miracle they mean something else because by definition we believe there is a God and therefore Miracles are exclusively His Domain. I realize that part of the problem in this discussion is that we use many of the same words and both us have wildly different ideas of what they mean... and both of us are completely right... only from within our respective worldviews. For either of us to be proven objectively right there would have to be an objective observer above our level of existence to validate one or even neither of us. That word objective also means two completely different things when seen from different worldviews. The way a Christian uses objective is not the way an atheist would use it for much the same reasons magic and miracles seem so different. There isn't even an objective definition of objective. Philosophers have been debating what objectivity even is for hundreds if not thousands of years. In a world without a higher dimensional intelligence to express objective truth it is impossible for the subject, the person, to remove themselves from their own subjective perceptions and see the object... the thing as it really is.

For a very crude example... when Neo was in the office in the beginning of the Matrix he did not perceive the threat coming his way because from his small cubicle he only saw walls. The observer with the better, higher perspective... the people on the Nebuchadnezzar viewing him in the Matrix.... were capable of perceiving things his immediate circumstances and their physcial properties restricted him from perceiving. Their distance from the situation provided a metaphorical objectivity he did not have. A being with a higher dimensional reality than ours... perhaps even ultimate dimensional reality... should therefore be able to perceive things that we can't and therefore be ultimately objective.

Without a higher dimensional observer, therefore, all we have is the subject observing, and that's us. All we have is our perceptions which therefore are from the subject... hence subjective.

To a Christian worldview the objective point of view only exists if there is a God. We believe that we are not really what you see so it is impossible for us to perceive reality objectively. It seems to me that to an Atheist worldview objectivity only exists because, in their epistemology there is no God or confusing and unverifiable externalization to reality. I take this to mean that Metaphysical Naturalists believe that sensation and perception may be trusted as long as they are verifiable externally in a repeatable, demonstrable way.

The same story told from different worldviews can mean very different things.

AronRa wrote:I get that. One of the leading evolutionary scientists for a long time was Dr Robert T Bakker, who held PhDs from Harvard and Johns Hopkins. Yet he was also a Pentacostal preacher who taught that to read the Bible literally deprived it of it's true meaning. That said though, we still have to acknowledge the fact that virtually nothing in those parables is literally or even figuratively true. I mean, we could say that the fable of the Garden of Eden was a parable about men should consider women as the bringers of civilization, which was an interpretation that made sense to me, and that it reflects the idea that "you can never go home again" or return to child-like innocence of mere animal intelligence. But otherwise everything about that story has only mislead and enslaved people. There's just no justification for prettying up the text so much that there's no actual truth to be found in it anymore."

What frees and enslaves a man are also polar opposites in our worldviews. I am free in Christ. An atheist, a sincere Metaphysical Naturalist might believe reason, empiricism, and logic make one free from the illusions which enslave me... A Christian believes slavery is the condition of bondage to sin. Just like your interpretation of Genesis comes from the symbols you cherish, the way you interpret them from your worldview, and the way the story resonates (or fails to) with truth as you understand it. Truth as I understand it is informed almost entirely by the Bible... It's my set of symbols and I translate everything based on the language of Christian theology.

AronRa wrote:And still, Adam was obviously based on a composite of Adapa and Enki while Eve was based on a compilation of Ninti and Lilith.

There are a lot of stories like Adapa that you could cite as parallel but again it's hard to say if the Bible is derivative or if it is just a common use of symbols which the intended audience would know. The Greeks, Jews, and Sumerians all understood fruit and trees as metaphors, just like in Persephone's tale, Adapa's or Adam's. The symbols and how they interact with the worldview of the people using them to tell a story is what's relevant here.

It is interesting you see Eve as a the amalgamation of a goddess and a demon. Having been married for many years this makes sense to me. Eve was just a woman, though, and I have always thought that was a big part of the tale. That Adam and Eve were just people, humans, and they had tried to be like God and failed.

Ninti is not a similar character at all and here is why I think this:

Ninti healed the rib, Eve was the rib after it was ripped out.

Ninti was one of eight goddesses spawned to heal all kinds of hurts from the jaw to the limbs. Rib also meant something different to the authors of this document. The word for rib they used was 'ti' I have read which means life. The Hebrew word for rib means literally rib. It's even used to mean the beams that support a house, it's a literal rib of a man, a house or a ship. It isn't generally used metaphorically.

After all the new deities are created to heal Enki, he and Ninhursag share an uncomfortably close moment in which Ninti is not mentioned. She's a minor part of the story who just got written in because of what seems like clever word play with the word they used which we translate as 'rib'.

In fact, in this translation of the story she only appears once that I can find.

AronRa wrote:I have to adhere to rigid precise definitions within the precise context we're talking about, and I've never heard a better description of evil than the one proposed by Scott Clifton.

"A particular action or choice is moral or right if it somehow promotes happiness, well-being, or health, or if it somehow minimizes unnecessary harm or suffering or both. A particular action or choice is immoral or wrong if it somehow diminishes happiness, well-being, or health, or if it somehow causes unnecessary harm or suffering or both."

Here we have an objective standard for what good and evil are. Have animals caused harm unnecessarily? Yes, on a few occasions, that has been shown to happen. According to the sacred stories, God has committed evil several times too.

This is a good definition to start from and it the basis of the questions which inform moral philosophy but it actually shows how tough the idea of moral reasoning from a subjective standpoint can be. The terms happiness, well-being, health, harm, and suffering are about as subjective as one can get. You can name numerous cases of each which many people would agree seemed universal but an exception can always readily be found. The goalpost on what is or is not happiness, well-being, health, harm and suffering shifts dramatically by worldview. The Spartans felt that allowing weak infants to live would detract from their well-being and the overall health of their nation resulting in less happiness and harm to the nation as it was. They also felt that compulsory homosexual relations between grown men and young boys was the surest was to increase their happiness. It was how they initiated them into the martial tradition and bonded them to their fellow soldiers. They caused immense harm and suffering in the name of what they believed was the greater good. It wasn't harm and suffering to them, though, it was just their way of trying to make the world a better place given their strongly held moral values. They represented one of the most powerful, meaningful nations in history. No one could dare say the Ancient Greek nations didn't have some concept of ethical philosophy and these people chose to live like this. The story of the 300 still resonates and we cheer and celebrate the victory of 300 men who had all likely had forced intercourse with preadolescent boys to 'make them better soldiers'. Ancient Hebrew morals are positively anachronistic when compared to Roman and Greek.

This definition you post reminds me of the idea of the hedonic calculus. ""(Gr.hedone pleasure) a method of working out the sum total of pleasure and pain produced by an act, and thus the total value of its consequences; also called the felicific calculus; sketched by Bentham in chapter 4 of his Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789). When determining what action is right in a given situation, we should consider the pleasures and pains resulting from it, in respect of their intensity, duration, certainty, propinquity, fecundity (the chance that a pleasure is followed by other ones, a pain by further pains), purity (the chance that pleasure is followed by pains and vice versa), and extent (the number of persons affected). We should next consider the alternative courses of action: ideally, this method will determine which act has the best tendency, and therefore is right"https://www.utilitarianism.com/hedcalc.htm

The problem is again that all of the indices of the calculus are subjective and mean something entirely different to different cultures. This is why for God to have committed evil one would have to have a perfect, objective standard from which to gauge whether or not God's actions were evil and no such standard exists. You'd have be a bigger God to judge God. Did God cause harm or did He minimize it? You have to look at the four dimensional case to really decide. If you look at what was going on in the rest of the ancient Near East and what was going on in Israel they were anachronistically moral. Maybe not by the way we judge morals today but certainly against the standard of the time they were moral. They offered the Lex Talionis to those in servitude (Ex 21:26,27). That was pretty advanced. The American South didn't even do that.

AronRa wrote:The reason why we won't is because the punishment does no good if the criminal doesn't know why or even that he is being punished, which completely refutes the garden of Eden fable, since Adam and Eve were forbidden to learn right from wrong.

Moral reasoning has to start from somewhere. They could only know right or wrong after doing something wrong. All they knew was right. That's like trying to know hot from cold when you live in fire. It's like Paul says in Romans 7:7

"7What then shall we say? Is the Law sin? By no means! Indeed, I would not have been mindful of sin if not for the Law. For I would not have been aware of coveting if the Law had not said, “Do not covet.”"

You can tell an animal all day not eat the fruit or it dies and all you get is bruised apples with a bite out of them and dead animals. There's something different about humans. There is a capability to act beyond the inclinations of our instincts in unpredictable ways that relate to abstracts not seen anywhere else in the animal world.

AronRa wrote:Have you never noticed the similarities that story has with the tale of Prometheus and Pandora? They're very nearly the same thing, but with the Christian crucifixion thrown in several centuries before the story of Jesus.

The tale of Prometheus occupies only a few lines in Works and Days and I think just a scant paragraph in Theogony, it starts at around 520 and reads like this

He bound 520the changeful-planning Prometheus with unbreakable fetters,painful bonds, and drove them through the middle of a pillar.And he sent a long-winged eagle upon him. Further, it atehis deathless liver, but there grew back all over during the nightas much as the bird of long wings had eaten during the whole 525whole day.

I cannot overlay that on Jesus in good conscience.

I could see Pandora from her stint in Works and Days being perhaps derivative of Eve since Genesis was written before Hesiod wrote Pandora which would mean the Greeks borrowed from the Jews instead. Pandora is original sin in a jar if you read her right. Even scholars believe that Genesis was around the tenth century BC so if we are going by order of precedence wouldn't we think the Greeks were the plagiarists?

AronRa wrote:We had no choice, because in that story we didn't have free will until we ate the forbidden fruit. We had no knowledge of right or wrong before then. So you can't call it free will. At most we were naive enough to believe the one character in that fable who didn't lie. Not that even God lied in that story, but the serpent told the truth.

Gen 3"3 Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from [a]any tree of the garden’?” 2 The woman said to the serpent, “From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; 3 but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.’”

Eve was given a command and knew that she had the choice to obey or disobey. She was made aware her will could alter the natural world as she wished it. She demonstrates in this passage that she was fully aware of the rule, and that she had the power to break it but had chosen not to thus far as an act of will out of fear of consequences.

4 The serpent said to the woman, “You surely will not die! 5 For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves [b]loin coverings."

He lied. He said that they would not die and they both died. The serpent lied to them and because of the lie they both tasted death, fear, pain and suffering. One of their sons slew the other. If anyone can be said to have literally tasted death its Adam and Eve.

AronRa wrote:I'm sure you were told that, by another Christian, and that you haven't actually attempted that experiment. I learned a long time ago that if you want to know what a Mormon or a Hindu believes, don't ask a Baptist, because they don't know and will only lie to you.

I have debated many people on this subject. Jews, Muslims, Wiccans, and others. I sat down for an hours long conversation with a Rabbi once for a college project where I asked members of six or seven different religious views (including an atheist) ten questions. It was a take on the ten questions with the Dalai Lama I did for a world religions course. Wow did he teach me a lot. When I asked him if he could ask God one question, what would it be... he said,"Why I can't have cheese on my burger."

AronRa wrote:That's not the truth at all. I don't know about the rest of it, but they definitely have a messiah. They wrote the basis of your Bible, remember? They laid out the criteria for their messianic savior therein, and Jesus failed to meet any of those requirements.

I watched this video and it is a lot of what I debate Jews on all the time. There are things we may never agree on but the one question they cannot answer is how they can atone for sin without a temple. The only account for sin made in the last Covenant God had with the Jews was that they offer burnt offerings and animal sacrifices to atone for their sin. The sacrifices were not meant to be the ultimate end of the process but rather to show them that even with clear, easy to follow guidelines they would never willingly find their way home to God... they couldn't. The Hebrew failures constantly happening in the OT tell one that no matter how willing God was to forgive and start over they couldn't ever justify themselves by their own works. When the temple was destroyed there was no Scriptural remedy for sin if Messiah had not come. If the Jews are right and Christ was not Messiah then by their own Scripture they have been dying and going to hell since 70 AD.

If I am wrong on this matter and can be shown to be so in Old Testament I will gladly change my tune but as far as I know it, there is not a Scriptural remedy for sin that is given beyond Temple practice that withstands exegesis.

MatthewLee wrote:To my knowledge, temporally, the Talmud was also composed at the very least 800 years after even the most pessimistic scholar might date the final compilation of the Torah.

AronRa wrote:You're talking about what was originally practiced as the oral torah, when the Tanakh (Old Testament) was called the written Torah.

I'm sure you know all this so I just want to clarify with respect. Torah is the first five books of the Bible, Tanakh "Tanakh is an acronym of the first Hebrew letter of each of the Masoretic Text's three traditional subdivisions: Torah ("Teaching", also known as the Five Books of Moses), Nevi'im ("Prophets") and Ketuvim ("Writings")—hence TaNaKh." I don't recall ever hearing that Torah was ever called Tanakh but rather I believe it is only a part of the Tanakh. If the written Torah coexisted with the Oral Torah it would indicate that they could have written it down and just chose not to. This is not really in keeping with the nature of a people who so carefully maintain their records that we can read the written Torah from before the turn of the first millennium BC. It seems convenient that they didn't write down the 'oral torah', which seemingly exculpates them without the need for Temple Sacrifices, until after the Temple was burned down. It's also funny that this is exactly the kind of thing Jesus explicitly chastised them for in Mark 7:8. He warns them not to substitute the traditions of men for Scripture... which if he was talking about the Oral Torah... meant it was written by men and not God.

AronRa wrote:Yet Catholicism and Orthodoxy were the foundation of the modern Christian belief, and Christians since then have adopted another legend which you admit isn't Biblical either."

Catholicism and Orthodoxy were the foundation, and only central authority, of modern Catholicism and Orthodoxy. The Bible is the authority of modern Christianity. Sola Scriptura, my friend, or you are only following the traditions of men and you get the Inquisition and the Crusades. Jesus would be so mad. I can see Him thumbing through the Bible frantically and asking,"Where did I say torturing Muslim men and women would get you into Heaven!?! How did they get that out of this?!?" I'd love to hear the phone call between him and the Pope. Who am I kidding? The Pope would never take Jesus' call. He never has anyway.

AronRa wrote:There was never a global flood. We know that much for certain.

In really researching this I believe that the evidence would overwhelmingly suggest you are correct. In my faith in a global flood I have been incorrect. I do not believe in a Global Flood anymore, I believe the Bible interpretation which you label Noah's Flood to be in grave error at this point in my studies. We have substituted the traditions of men for Scripture.

First of all the linguistics prove that it doesn't say that from a common sense standpoint. Hebrew in 1000 BC can't really have a word for global can it? That would be so glaringly anachronistic seeing that they didn't know about the world beyond the Ancient Near East. Their cosmology would not have even allowed their language to contain the barest shade of the meaning of the word global. The word "earth" has a little 'e' in most Bible translations because it's not Earth...The Bible predates the idea of global anything such that a global flood cannot even be a universal interpretation because it didn't teach Christians in 500 AD to go looking for North America. It sounds like a modern overlay which enthusiastic people try and prove and really just fail at. This is like when we assumed the Hebrews were the slaves that built the pyramids but nobody talks about that one anymore. Thanks, Dr. Hawass.

There are so many physical problems with the idea of a global flood why... well... I probably don't have to go on too far on that one with you especially. You are an authority on the subject.

A local flood would have made much more sense and is supported by the presence of multiple local legends like Gilgamesh which all share details. I believe that there is some evidence for a local flood as well. For example:"Greg Neyman of Old Earth Ministries lays out the parameters:

The site of the flood would have to meet three requirements.

First, it would have to be capable of containing the waters of the flood. In order to do this, we need a basin, with no outlet to the sea. If there were an outlet, the water would simply run out of the area.

Second, the flood would have to fit the parameters mentioned in the Bible. The source of the waters is not in question. The only point that matters here is that Noah believed that the world was flooded, and that all the mountains were covered with water.

Neyman calculates that Noah, standing on the deck of the ark, would have been able to see a mountain 95 miles away. That gives us a ballpark estimate of how much area the flood would have to include to cover the highest mountains.

The final requirement is this: Does the proposed location agree with the geography mentioned in the Genesis account? It would have to flood the areas populated by mankind. We don't have many clues as to the extent of the geographic area. However, it would appear to include the area around the Garden of Eden, and east of the Garden."

AronRa wrote:your answer ignores the fact that all the elder fables already existed in Semitic mythos long before the newer versions of those same stories appeared in the Bible, adapted to the new god of the new religion.

Some of the elder legends absolutely shared details with the Bible. Like the Utnapishtim story is absolutely a completely similar parallel to Noah's ark with uncanny likeness. It could indicate that Israel had absolutely made contact with the nations who knew this myth, perhaps. It definitely could be plagiarized and that is one hypothesis. It could also be multiple cultures reexplaining the same events from their worldview which is really what you and I do.

It's clearly both shared and plagiarized. The event occurred in what is now Iraq, centered on the city of Shuruppak roughly 4900 years ago. The earliest accounts from a couple centuries later are all so similar that coincidence is impossible. They're all obviously talking about the same event, but still attributed to the old gods of the time. Then a thousand years later, we get the same story re-cast, this time for a new god, adapted from a template of one of the old Canaanite gods.

For example I concede something else to you in a limited way... When you say Magic and Miracles mean the same thing you are correct. In an atheistic, purely metaphysical naturalist worldview don't supernatural phenomena all fall under the same umbrella of either charlatanry or outright deception explainable by more reasonable means?

No. When Gandalf uses his magic, we understand that he's not doing slight-of-hand tricks. When the djinn granted Aladdin's wishes, those weren't illusions either. Likewise, when Spock does his mind meld or Obi-wan manipulates the force, none of those are "chicanery". When Hermione Granger points her wand and utters the incantation, we understand that she's not creating the illusion that the troll went to sleep. Her spell has actually put the troll to sleep.

The definition of magic and miracles must be the same when an atheist says them because in a world with no God or gods there are no miracles or magic (excluding the kind that Houdini did)... there's just what's there... that's if I understand some of your worldview.

You don't. Stage magicians often refer to themselves as illusionists because they don't want people to confuse what they do with magic. Magic/miracles are the evocation of supernatural forces or entities to control or forecast natural events in ways that are inexplicable by science because they defy the laws of physics, and are thus physically impossible.

You don't need gods for magic, although gods are made of magic. The Lord of the Rings didn't evoke any gods. Neither did Harry Potter nor Gandolf nor Samantha Stevens either. They and the Djinni use traditional magic like Merlin. Spock, Obi-wan and Doctor Strange use psionics, powers thought to reside in the potential of the mind. But they're all effectively the same thing, using the power of will (faith) to change reality with the magic powers of the mind. Curses, enchantments (blessings) incantations, golems, faith-healing, exorcism, casting of wards, transformation, necromancy and all other supernatural manifestations such as the Bible describes are all magical, including the fruit of the tree of eternal life and the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Although that is obviously metaphorical, a literal reading would have to be magical.

Same with a talking donkey or a talking snake. They have to be magically enchanted. That's what a "blessing" is. When someone says "have a blessed day", they're literally saying "have a magically enchanted day".

When a Christian says Miracle they mean something else because by definition we believe there is a God and therefore Miracles are exclusively His Domain.

So when you read about King Arthur or Aladdin's Lamp or the Lord of the Rings, or Harry Potter, you imagine that they're all praying to God? You really can't see how their evocation of supernatural forces doesn't necessarily have to involve any deity, much less yours? If miracles/magic are exclusively God's domain, then why does the Bible say that Pharoah's magi were able to turn their staves into snakes? That wouldn't be possible in the context of that story given your definition.

I realize that part of the problem in this discussion is that we use many of the same words and both us have wildly different ideas of what they mean... and both of us are completely right... only from within our respective worldviews.

I have noticed that believers use equivocation in this way. So I posted a list of definitions of relevant terms for the sake of clarity.

For example, what I "believe" is only a logical consequence of my understanding of the facts, meaning that I think this is mostly true or most likely true, but I don't necessarily know it if I can't demonstrate that my understanding is accurate. However "believers" treat belief as an act of conscious deliberate will, of mind over matter; that you can change reality through the power of positive thought if you can just believe "hard enough", so believe with all your heart. In other words, "believe" means "make-believe". Or as one Southern Baptist minister I know put it, "fake it 'til you make it", meaning that you should lie to yourself until you convince yourself through the power of pretend.

For either of us to be proven objectively right there would have to be an objective observer above our level of existence to validate one or even neither of us.

Extensive past experience has shown that I can prove my point without need of any outside authority to judge. I have facts in evidence instead.

That word objective also means two completely different things when seen from different worldviews. The way a Christian uses objective is not the way an atheist would use it for much the same reasons magic and miracles seem so different. There isn't even an objective definition of objective.

Yes there is.

ob·jec·tive/əbˈjektiv/adjective

"(of a person or their judgment) not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts."-Google

"of, relating to, or being an object, phenomenon, or condition in the realm of sensible experience independent of individual thought and perceptible by all observers : having reality independent of the mind objective reality"-Merriam Webster

"When you do something objectively, you do it with an open mind, considering the facts rather than your personal feelings." -Vocabulary.com

1. (of a person or their judgment) not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts.‘historians try to be objective and impartial’ Contrasted with subjective1.1 Not dependent on the mind for existence; actual.‘a matter of objective fact’-Oxford Dictionary

"based on real facts and not influenced by personal beliefs or feelings:"-Cambridge Dictionary

Looks like there is an objective definition of objective.

Philosophers have been debating what objectivity even is for hundreds if not thousands of years.

Philosophers live to argue. They redefine clear terms into ambiguous nonsense, determined not to have any determinable right or wrong in anything. That's why they define 'fact' as something that cannot be verified, where of course common language holds the exact opposite definition. A fact is objectively verifiable data.

In a world without a higher dimensional intelligence to express objective truth it is impossible for the subject, the person, to remove themselves from their own subjective perceptions and see the object... the thing as it really is.

Yet even in this very thread, we've already seen the opposite demonstrated multiple times.

For a very crude example... when Neo was in the office in the beginning of the Matrix he did not perceive the threat coming his way because from his small cubicle he only saw walls. The observer with the better, higher perspective... the people on the Nebuchadnezzar viewing him in the Matrix.... were capable of perceiving things his immediate circumstances and their physcial properties restricted him from perceiving. Their distance from the situation provided a metaphorical objectivity he did not have. A being with a higher dimensional reality than ours... perhaps even ultimate dimensional reality... should therefore be able to perceive things that we can't and therefore be ultimately objective.

I hope you're not trying to use The Matrix as an illustration of reality. Because the one thing they got right they got backwards.

Without a higher dimensional observer, therefore, all we have is the subject observing, and that's us. All we have is our perceptions which therefore are from the subject... hence subjective.

Except that, as I just showed you, there is an objective definition of objective. Neither of our subjective impressions have any influence over that.

To a Christian worldview the objective point of view only exists if there is a God.

And reality is of course completely different. The Christian doesn't have an objective viewpoint. It's entirely subjective and attributed to an imaginary friend. Even if God existed, it would still be a subjective viewpoint.

We believe that we are not really what you see so it is impossible for us to perceive reality objectively.

I've often said that the religious position is so weak that the only way apologists could be right is if reality is wrong and everything is an illusion, which of course is absurd. This is where we have to choose between the red or the blue pill again, whether we're open to accept truth or whether we'd rather have faith in what we'd rather believe.

It seems to me that to an Atheist worldview objectivity only exists because, in their epistemology there is no God or confusing and unverifiable externalization to reality.

I would say there's no god in your epistemology either. The phantasm that your god is only nullifies your epistemology. It actually leaves you unable to know what you could have known before. Instead you're convinced that you know things that you don't.

I take this to mean that Metaphysical Naturalists believe that sensation and perception may be trusted as long as they are verifiable externally in a repeatable, demonstrable way.

When David Hume, (and atheist himself) described what he called the problem of induction, he explained that we have no choice but to make the same assumption as a child or a beast would, because we must. Therefore Hume's answer is to favor consistency. That everything we do in life is based on the assumption that we can learn from experience and that the future will conform to the past. We can't even go about our day otherwise.

In the words of Dr Peter Millican, professor of Philosophy at Oxford, "the rational thing to do is accept that we are part of nature and that this assumption is one that we simply cannot live without. So we should systematize what we learn about the world in conformity with our model of an assumption of consistently uniform laws of nature. Hume himself advocates that we must assume this," and "it gives a reliable basis for preferring science to superstition".

In Hume's own words, "Custom, then, is the great guide of human life. It is that principle alone, which renders our experience useful to us, and makes us expect, for the future, a similar train of events with those which have appeared in the past.Without the influence of custom, we should be entirely ignorant of every matter of fact, beyond what is immediately present to the memory and senses. We should never know how to adjust means to ends, or to employ our natural powers in the production of any effect. There would be an end at once of all action, as well as of the chief part of speculation."

He also explains how, by this assumption, we can actually do and know things reliably and without resorting to any logical fallacy.

"But here it may be proper to remark, that though our conclusions from experience carry us beyond our memory and senses, and assure us of matters of fact, which happened in the most distant places and most remote ages; yet some fact must always be present to the senses or memory, from which we may first proceed in drawing these conclusions. A man, who should find in a desert country the remains of pompous buildings, would conclude, that the country had, in ancient times, been cultivated by civilized inhabitants; but did nothing of this nature occur to him, he could never form such an inference. We learn the events of former ages from history; but then we must peruse the volumes, in which this instruction is contained, and thence carry up our inferences from one testimony to another, till we arrive at the eye-witnesses and spectators of these distant events. In a word, if we proceed not upon some fact, present to the memory or senses, our reasonings would be merely hypothetical; and however the particular links might be connected with each other, the whole chain of inferences would have nothing to support it, nor could we ever, by its means, arrive at the knowledge of any real existence."http://davidhume.org/texts/ehu.html

Another thing Sye ten Bruggencate liked to say was, "how do you know the laws of physics won't change five seconds from now." But of course if we assume that the laws of physics WILL change, that would be irrational, as it is not based on or in accordance with reason, and it violates all experience on which our knowledge is based. Further someone determined not to assume any degree of uniformitarianism would likewise be perceived as insane and incapable, since it would be impossible to get anything done.

So of course I have to side with the pragmatist. Since Hume said we must inevitably and irresistibly assume uniformitarianism, and since it is impossible not to make this assumption and still function, then induction could be considered the only rational position by definition, especially since assuming anything else would be considered irrational.

The same story told from different worldviews can mean very different things.

Our "world-views" are irrelevant here. One of us is right and one of us is wrong and there is way that we can both determine that objectively, no matter what you'd rather believe.

What frees and enslaves a man are also polar opposites in our worldviews. I am free in Christ.

No you're not. You are by every definition a slave, bound to a faith-based belief-system which prohibits your very thinking, so that the most basic of all human rights is not available to you. You have required beliefs that are not supported or indicated by anything outside of imagination, and you have prohibited beliefs which restrict your ability even to learn. I on the other hand am a free thinker, able to evaluate what I will without any obligation to whatever my conclusions might turn out to be.

An atheist, a sincere Metaphysical Naturalist might believe reason, empiricism, and logic make one free from the illusions which enslave me...

You keep calling me a "Metaphysical Naturalist" as if that applies to all atheists. That didn't even apply to me for the first 15 years of my atheism. It's not like I have an obligation to hold a position like you do. The difference between us is that I care more about truth than anything else. It doesn't matter what either of us believe. All that matters is why we believe it, and whether we can show objective indications of which position is the more accurate, honest, parsimonious, and whether it is backed by facts or by faith. Because in the latter case, it is meaningless.

A Christian believes slavery is the condition of bondage to sin.

There again, even by your definition, you're the one who is enslaved while I am free.

Just like your interpretation of Genesis comes from the symbols you cherish,

You think I cherish symbols? I don't. I'm sure I told you before, the only value information can have is however accurate you can show it to be. If you can't show that it's accurate at all, then it has no value at all. An unsupported claim has no more credence than one that has been disproved.

the way you interpret them from your worldview, and the way the story resonates (or fails to) with truth as you understand it.

My "world-view" is irrelevant as I am not obliged to believe something that is not supported and required to maintain that belief no matter what. I just need facts to indicate that and a method of evaluation. You don't have either of these.

Truth as I understand it is informed almost entirely by the Bible...

Impossible. The truth is what the facts are. The Bible neither has nor wants any relationship with facts. It's all about faith instead.

It's my set of symbols and I translate everything based on the language of Christian theology.

So you're constrained within the blinders of lies which you're unable to question or escape. You should've chosen the red pill.

There are a lot of stories like Adapa that you could cite as parallel but again it's hard to say if the Bible is derivative or if it is just a common use of symbols which the intended audience would know. The Greeks, Jews, and Sumerians all understood fruit and trees as metaphors, just like in Persephone's tale, Adapa's or Adam's. The symbols and how they interact with the worldview of the people using them to tell a story is what's relevant here.

We agree that the symbolism is common in many of the elder neighboring cultures. Look at the firmament or the cloak of night, for example. But you're still ignoring the fact that these elder myths were already known and circulated by the grandfathers of the Biblical authors a thousand years before the version you're pleading for now.

It is interesting you see Eve as a the amalgamation of a goddess and a demon.

It's more interesting that I see her as neither, and that I never gave you any reason to jump to the conclusion you did.

Having been married for many years this makes sense to me. Eve was just a woman, though, and I have always thought that was a big part of the tale. That Adam and Eve were just people, humans, and they had tried to be like God and failed.

You understand that neither of these characters were ever real, right?

Ninti is not a similar character at all and here is why I think this:

Ninti healed the rib, Eve was the rib after it was ripped out.

Yes, the daughter born of the rib, for she was meant to close the wound to his side. That's not at all similar to being born from his rib, and God closed the wound to his side. No resemblance there at all.

Ninti was one of eight goddesses spawned to heal all kinds of hurts from the jaw to the limbs. Rib also meant something different to the authors of this document. The word for rib they used was 'ti' I have read which means life. The Hebrew word for rib means literally rib. It's even used to mean the beams that support a house, it's a literal rib of a man, a house or a ship. It isn't generally used metaphorically.

After all the new deities are created to heal Enki, he and Ninhursag share an uncomfortably close moment in which Ninti is not mentioned. She's a minor part of the story who just got written in because of what seems like clever word play with the word they used which we translate as 'rib'.

In fact, in this translation of the story she only appears once that I can find.

So if your god never existed and wasn't the inspiration for the Garden of Eden story; if it was actually based on a compilation of these older myths that were already circulating through Semitic culture, (as is screamingly obvious to me) then these differences you cite would have been there and been re-edited for a new message and the new religion. These facts are consistent with my hypothesis, but neither these differences nor the similarities, nor the original polytheism of these people, nore anything else is consistent with your hypothesis.

Although I don't think you've actually told me your hypothesis yet. So far I think you've only said that you're determined to believe the Bible no matter what.

AronRa wrote:I have to adhere to rigid precise definitions within the precise context we're talking about, and I've never heard a better description of evil than the one proposed by Scott Clifton.

"A particular action or choice is moral or right if it somehow promotes happiness, well-being, or health, or if it somehow minimizes unnecessary harm or suffering or both. A particular action or choice is immoral or wrong if it somehow diminishes happiness, well-being, or health, or if it somehow causes unnecessary harm or suffering or both."

Here we have an objective standard for what good and evil are. Have animals caused harm unnecessarily? Yes, on a few occasions, that has been shown to happen. According to the sacred stories, God has committed evil several times too.

This is a good definition to start from and it the basis of the questions which inform moral philosophy but it actually shows how tough the idea of moral reasoning from a subjective standpoint can be. The terms happiness, well-being, health, harm, and suffering are about as subjective as one can get.

All of these can easily be objectively verified and contrasted with their opposites.

You can name numerous cases of each which many people would agree seemed universal but an exception can always readily be found.

OK, show me. How could your behavior toward a person be interpreted on both extremes?

Actually I think Scott Clifton has already explored this pretty well.

The goalpost on what is or is not happiness, well-being, health, harm and suffering shifts dramatically by worldview.

No it doesn't. There's a distinct difference between causing happiness and causing unnecessary suffering.

The Spartans felt that allowing weak infants to live would detract from their well-being and the overall health of their nation resulting in less happiness and harm to the nation as it was.They also felt that compulsory homosexual relations between grown men and young boys was the surest was to increase their happiness. It was how they initiated them into the martial tradition and bonded them to their fellow soldiers. They caused immense harm and suffering in the name of what they believed was the greater good. It wasn't harm and suffering to them, though, it was just their way of trying to make the world a better place given their strongly held moral values. They represented one of the most powerful, meaningful nations in history. No one could dare say the Ancient Greek nations didn't have some concept of ethical philosophy and these people chose to live like this. The story of the 300 still resonates and we cheer and celebrate the victory of 300 men who had all likely had forced intercourse with preadolescent boys to 'make them better soldiers'. Ancient Hebrew morals are positively anachronistic when compared to Roman and Greek.

However since we agree that the cited description actually does define what good and evil are, and even they would have to agree to that, we then point out where they are contradicting that standard.

This definition you post reminds me of the idea of the hedonic calculus. ""(Gr.hedone pleasure) a method of working out the sum total of pleasure and pain produced by an act, and thus the total value of its consequences; also called the felicific calculus; sketched by Bentham in chapter 4 of his Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789). When determining what action is right in a given situation, we should consider the pleasures and pains resulting from it, in respect of their intensity, duration, certainty, propinquity, fecundity (the chance that a pleasure is followed by other ones, a pain by further pains), purity (the chance that pleasure is followed by pains and vice versa), and extent (the number of persons affected). We should next consider the alternative courses of action: ideally, this method will determine which act has the best tendency, and therefore is right"https://www.utilitarianism.com/hedcalc.htm

The problem is again that all of the indices of the calculus are subjective and mean something entirely different to different cultures. This is why for God to have committed evil one would have to have a perfect, objective standard from which to gauge whether or not God's actions were evil and no such standard exists. You'd have be a bigger God to judge God.

Absurd. If we can't agree on a definition, then we don't even know what good and evil are, and all discussion of the matter is reduced to nonsense. If we can define what good and evil are, then we have REASON to show how the Spartans were wrong here and how your God was wrong there. If all we have are the subjective impressions of whatever someone imagines to be your god's opinion on different matters, then even if your god existed all we would have are his SUBJECTIVE opinions. Arguments from authority are worthless. Instead of another authority over God, we need the EVIDENCE to show regardless what he or anyone else has to say about it.

What is good and evil? This is what good and evil are. If you can define it, then that is an objective standard. Now compare your actions to that.

Did God cause harm or did He minimize it? You have to look at the four dimensional case to really decide.

I'd have to know which Biblical atrocity we're talking about, but I think in every fable, he consistently only ever made things worse.

If you look at what was going on in the rest of the ancient Near East and what was going on in Israel they were anachronistically moral. Maybe not by the way we judge morals today but certainly against the standard of the time they were moral. They offered the Lex Talionis to those in servitude (Ex 21:26,27). That was pretty advanced. The American South didn't even do that.

You may be referring to Hammurabi's Stele of Law from 1750 BCE or thereabouts: much of which was copied into Exodus 20-23 for another plagiarism, this time of the commandments. Note also that Hammurabi's law code was far more moral than the crazed and racist ravings on Moses' tablets.

"Faith means not wanting to know what is true." - Friedrich Nietzsche. "Faith is believing what you know ain't so." - Mark Twain

The reason why we won't is because the punishment does no good if the criminal doesn't know why or even that he is being punished, which completely refutes the garden of Eden fable, since Adam and Eve were forbidden to learn right from wrong.

Moral reasoning has to start from somewhere. They could only know right or wrong after doing something wrong. All they knew was right. That's like trying to know hot from cold when you live in fire. It's like Paul says in Romans 7:7

"7What then shall we say? Is the Law sin? By no means! Indeed, I would not have been mindful of sin if not for the Law. For I would not have been aware of coveting if the Law had not said, “Do not covet.”"

You can tell an animal all day not eat the fruit or it dies and all you get is bruised apples with a bite out of them and dead animals. There's something different about humans. There is a capability to act beyond the inclinations of our instincts in unpredictable ways that relate to abstracts not seen anywhere else in the animal world.

Not in this case. The characters is this entirely made-up myth were not allowed to have human comprehension of right or wrong. So “you could tell them all day” yada yada; same thing as with animals: except that animals learn pretty quickly when they're not supposed to do something, not that it’ll stop them.

AronRa wrote:Have you never noticed the similarities that story has with the tale of Prometheus and Pandora? They're very nearly the same thing, but with the Christian crucifixion thrown in several centuries before the story of Jesus.

The tale of Prometheus occupies only a few lines in Works and Days and I think just a scant paragraph in Theogony, it starts at around 520 and reads like this

He bound 520the changeful-planning Prometheus with unbreakable fetters,painful bonds, and drove them through the middle of a pillar.And he sent a long-winged eagle upon him. Further, it atehis deathless liver, but there grew back all over during the nightas much as the bird of long wings had eaten during the whole 525whole day.

I cannot overlay that on Jesus in good conscience.

I was referring to the story called, “Prometheus Bound”.

I could see Pandora from her stint in Works and Days being perhaps derivative of Eve since Genesis was written before Hesiod wrote Pandora which would mean the Greeks borrowed from the Jews instead. Pandora is original sin in a jar if you read her right. Even scholars believe that Genesis was around the tenth century BC so if we are going by order of precedence wouldn't we think the Greeks were the plagiarists?

Scholars put Genesis as one of the Priestly writings from about 450 BCE, coming out of Babylon probably by Ezra.

When Pandora opened her box and released sin into the world is one of these parallels, as is Prometheus granting forbidden knowledge to man, thus making humans "like unto gods". In this instance, you could argue that Pandora and the Garden of Eden might have been contemporary, if we didn't know about the much earlier elements. However, Prometheus was then crucified to atone for the sin of man's acquisition of forbidden knowledge, and Aeschylus wrote that no less than 400 years before the time alleged for Jesus. That's not just a parallel, especially since that story was already well-known by the Greek authors of the gospels.

We had no choice, because in that story we didn't have free will until we ate the forbidden fruit. We had no knowledge of right or wrong before then. So you can't call it free will. At most we were naive enough to believe the one character in that fable who didn't lie. Not that even God lied in that story, but the serpent told the truth.

Gen 3"3 Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from [a]any tree of the garden’?” 2 The woman said to the serpent, “From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; 3 but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.’”

Eve was given a command and knew that she had the choice to obey or disobey. She was made aware her will could alter the natural world as she wished it. She demonstrates in this passage that she was fully aware of the rule, and that she had the power to break it but had chosen not to thus far as an act of will out of fear of consequences.

The story says she was denied the ability to know right from wrong. So just like your own example, we have dogs and cats who know they’ll be punished WHEN they do this, not IF.

Eve was given no choice. The most naïve character imaginable, morally disabled and gullible was placed in a garden that was not only—intentionally—rigged with a cursed tree that should never have been there, but just in case she didn't accidentally take the bait, there was a convincing salesman in the form of a snake to make sure and seal the deal. The whole thing was a trap deliberately set by God. There was no way she could have avoided it. She was destined to taste forbidden fruit by design.

4 The serpent said to the woman, “You surely will not die! 5 For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves [b]loin coverings."

He lied.

The serpent told the truth. He said they would not surely die and they didn't. Instead he said that God knew their eyes would be opened, and they would be as gods, knowing good and evil. The serpent was right about all of it.

He said that they would not die and they both died.

Neither one died.

God said:

"But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for IN THE DAY THAT THOU EATEST THEREOF, thou shalt surely die."-King James Version

"but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for IN THE DAY THAT THOU EATEST THEREOF thou shalt surely die."-American Standard Version

"but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for IN THE DAY THAT YOU EAT FROM IT you will surely die."-New American Standard Version

"but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for IN THE DAY THAT YOU EAT OF IT you shall die."-New Revised Standard

They ate and their eyes were opened. They did NOT die like God said they would. Instead they lived on for centuries. Even if you correct for the sexegesimal numeric system they used back then, such that Adam really only lived between 75 and 90 years old, he still didn't die "in that day" like God said he would. However you interpret the numbers, he lived for many years after that day, and the story doesn't allow that he could have died in any sense on that day.

The serpent lied to them and because of the lie they both tasted death, fear, pain and suffering.

That was God’s lie. God failed to keep to his word, Instead of what he said would happen, he flew into a rage, lobbing curses at everyone: as if Mr Omniscience somehow didn't know this would happen--especially after rigging the trap so that it was bound to ensnare them. Nothing God ever does is just or wise or righteous. This was so that he could punish someone with life in hard labor when that person wasn't even competent at the time of the crime.

To say nothing of the fact that Mr Omnipotence can do anything he wants except the easiest thing, like unconditional love. Instead he had to invent conditions. He couldn't just forgive humanity for doing something he should have been proud of, not until we did something unforgivable first. There was never any reason or point to the crucifixion. Every part of this story is insane.

One of their sons slew the other. If anyone can be said to have literally tasted death its Adam and Eve.

There's another contradiction--a few of them actually. Cain killed Abel and lied about it to hide the crime from God, just like Moses murdered that Egyptian and then tried to hide the body--both BEFORE the Ten Commandments. All the apologists tell me no one even could know that murder was wrong until God said so. Obviously no one needed the Ten Commandments to tell them that, especially since Moses was supposed to have lived no less than 500 years after Hammurabi had already published the original law code.

Hammurabi was an actual historic person. Moses never existed at all. The Exodus never happened other than in cinema. The Stele of Law is real and on display at the Louvre, but the arc of the covenant only exists in movies.

AronRa wrote:I'm sure you were told that, by another Christian, and that you haven't actually attempted that experiment. I learned a long time ago that if you want to know what a Mormon or a Hindu believes, don't ask a Baptist, because they don't know and will only lie to you.

I have debated many people on this subject. Jews, Muslims, Wiccans, and others. I sat down for an hours long conversation with a Rabbi once for a college project where I asked members of six or seven different religious views (including an atheist) ten questions. It was a take on the ten questions with the Dalai Lama I did for a world religions course. Wow did he teach me a lot. When I asked him if he could ask God one question, what would it be... he said,"Why I can't have cheese on my burger."

So he wanted to know why God made him lactose intolerant?

AronRa wrote:That's not the truth at all. I don't know about the rest of it, but they definitely have a messiah. They wrote the basis of your Bible, remember? They laid out the criteria for their messianic savior therein, and Jesus failed to meet any of those requirements.

I watched this video and it is a lot of what I debate Jews on all the time. There are things we may never agree on but the one question they cannot answer is how they can atone for sin without a temple. The only account for sin made in the last Covenant God had with the Jews was that they offer burnt offerings and animal sacrifices to atone for their sin. The sacrifices were not meant to be the ultimate end of the process but rather to show them that even with clear, easy to follow guidelines they would never willingly find their way home to God... they couldn't. The Hebrew failures constantly happening in the OT tell one that no matter how willing God was to forgive and start over they couldn't ever justify themselves by their own works.

Wait, when was there ever any indication that God wanted to forgive anything or had anything to forgive? Were the Jews not committing every heinous atrocity he commanded?

When the temple was destroyed there was no Scriptural remedy for sin if Messiah had not come. If the Jews are right and Christ was not Messiah then by their own Scripture they have been dying and going to hell since 70 AD.

If I am wrong on this matter and can be shown to be so in Old Testament I will gladly change my tune but as far as I know it, there is not a Scriptural remedy for sin that is given beyond Temple practice that withstands exegesis.

I don't know a lot about the Jews interpret their own book, but I know this much.

The Christian tradition that arose based on the character of Jesus is a very different religion from Judaism (from which it emerged), and rabbinical scholars have very different interpretations of the prophesied messiah. According to JewFAQ.org’s article “Mashiach: The Messiah,”

The mashiach will be a great political leader descended from King David (Jeremiah 23:5). The mashiach is often referred to as “mashiach ben David” (mashiach, son of David). He will be well-versed in Jewish law, and observant of its commandments. (Isaiah 11:2-5) He will be a charismatic leader, inspiring others to follow his example. He will be a great military leader, who will win battles for Israel. He will be a great judge, who makes righteous decisions (Jeremiah 33:15). But above all, he will be a human being, not a god, demi-god or other supernatural being…. The mashiach will bring about the political and spiritual redemption of the Jewish people by bringing us back to Israel and restoring Jerusalem (Isaiah 11:11-12; Jeremiah 23:8; 30:3; Hosea 3:4-5). He will establish a government in Israel that will be the center of all world government, both for Jews and gentiles (Isaiah 2:2-4; 11:10; 42:1). He will rebuild the Temple and re-establish its worship (Jeremiah 33:18). He will restore the religious court system of Israel and establish Jewish law as the law of the land (Jeremiah 33:15).

So from the mainstream Jewish perspective, Jesus doesn’t qualify as the mashiach because he didn’t do any of the things the mashiach was supposed to do. The organization, Jews for Judaism has published a handbook titled The Jewish Response to Missionaries, which explains why the Jesus as messiah story didn’t fit the needed criteria and is not biblically supported from the perspective of the original tradition:

In an accurate translation of the Jewish Scriptures, the word “Moshiach” is never translated as “Messiah,” but as “anointed.” Nevertheless, Judaism has always maintained a fundamental belief in a Messianic figure. Since the concept of a Messiah is one that was given by G-d to the Jews, Jewish tradition is best qualified to describe and recognize the expected Messiah. This tradition has its foundation in numerous biblical references, many of which are cited below. Judaism understands the Messiah to be a human being (with no connotation of deity or divinity) who will bring about certain changes in the world and who must fulfill certain specific criteria before being acknowledged as the Messiah.

SACRED SCRIPTURES ARE THE “WORD OF GOD” • 55 These specific criteria are as follows:

1. He must be Jewish. (Deuteronomy 17:15, Numbers 24:17)

2. He must be a member of the tribe of Judah (Genesis 49:10) and a direct male descendent of both King David (I Chronicles 17:11, Psalm 89:29– 38, Jeremiah 33:17, II Samuel 7:12-16) and King Solomon. (I Chronicles 22:10, II Chronicles 7:18)

3. He must gather the Jewish people from exile and return them to Israel. (Isaiah 27:12-13, Isaiah 11:12)

4. He must rebuild the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. (Micah 4:1) 5. He must bring world peace. (Isaiah 2:4, Isaiah 11:6, Micah 4:3) 6. He must influence the entire world to acknowledge and serve one G-d. (Isaiah 11:9, Isaiah 40:5, Zephaniah 3:9)

All of these criteria for the Messiah are best stated in the book of Ezekiel chapter 37:24–28:

And My servant David will be a king over them, and they will all have one shepherd, and they will walk in My ordinances, and keep My statutes, and observe them, and they shall live on the land that I gave to Jacob My servant . . . and I will make a covenant of peace with them; it will be an everlasting covenant and I will set my sanctuary in their midst forever and My dwelling place shall be with them, and I will be their G-d and they will be My people. And the nations will know that I am the Lord who sanctifies Israel, when My sanctuary is in their midst forever.

As Jews for Judaism states, “If an individual fails to fulfill even one of these conditions, he cannot be the Messiah.” Note that these are not things the messiah is supposed to do only after he comes back from the dead. According to the Jewish Virtual Library, “One talmudic source does apparently attribute immortality to Messiah (Suk. 52a), and the Midrash (mostly later) singles him out among the immortals of Paradise.” So the Jewish messiah only gets one life, because he is immortal— he can’t die. Yet he is supposed to accomplish all these qualifications before he can be called “messiah.”

MatthewLee wrote:To my knowledge, temporally, the Talmud was also composed at the very least 800 years after even the most pessimistic scholar might date the final compilation of the Torah.

You're talking about what was originally practiced as the oral torah, when the Tanakh (Old Testament) was called the written Torah.

I'm sure you know all this so I just want to clarify with respect. Torah is the first five books of the Bible, Tanakh "Tanakh is an acronym of the first Hebrew letter of each of the Masoretic Text's three traditional subdivisions: Torah ("Teaching", also known as the Five Books of Moses), Nevi'im ("Prophets") and Ketuvim ("Writings")—hence TaNaKh." I don't recall ever hearing that Torah was ever called Tanakh but rather I believe it is only a part of the Tanakh. If the written Torah coexisted with the Oral Torah it would indicate that they could have written it down and just chose not to. This is not really in keeping with the nature of a people who so carefully maintain their records that we can read the written Torah from before the turn of the first millennium BC. It seems convenient that they didn't write down the 'oral torah', which seemingly exculpates them without the need for Temple Sacrifices, until after the Temple was burned down. It's also funny that this is exactly the kind of thing Jesus explicitly chastised them for in Mark 7:8. He warns them not to substitute the traditions of men for Scripture... which if he was talking about the Oral Torah... meant it was written by men and not God.

[/quote]As I understand it, the written Torah is not the same thing as the Pentateuch, the five books erroneously attributed to Moses. The written Torah is a list of the 613 commandments detailed therein.

AronRa wrote:Yet Catholicism and Orthodoxy were the foundation of the modern Christian belief, and Christians since then have adopted another legend which you admit isn't Biblical either."

Catholicism and Orthodoxy were the foundation, and only central authority, of modern Catholicism and Orthodoxy. The Bible is the authority of modern Christianity. Sola Scriptura, my friend, or you are only following the traditions of men and you get the Inquisition and the Crusades. Jesus would be so mad. I can see Him thumbing through the Bible frantically and asking,"Where did I say torturing Muslim men and women would get you into Heaven!?! How did they get that out of this?!?" I'd love to hear the phone call between him and the Pope. Who am I kidding? The Pope would never take Jesus' call. He never has anyway.[/quote][/quote]I too am amused at the idea of Jesus berating modern evangelicals. "When did I ever once say I loved any of you? I told you that a rich man will not enter Heaven and to give up your wealth to feed the poor! Where did you get the idea that the Old Testament doesn't matter anymore? I said you'd better follow every jot and tittle of those old Mosaic laws or you'd be called "least" in Heaven. Why does Olsteen's megachurch have a shopping mall inside it? What did I say about money changers in my temple? When did I or my apostles or anyone who ever met me every talk about a trinity? Didn't you listen all the times I said that God is someone else, somewhere else, who knows things I don't know and can do things I can't do. The reason I have to pray to him and ask him for things is because he's not me!"

AronRa wrote:There was never a global flood. We know that much for certain.

In really researching this I believe that the evidence would overwhelmingly suggest you are correct. In my faith in a global flood I have been incorrect. I do not believe in a Global Flood anymore, I believe the Bible interpretation which you label Noah's Flood to be in grave error at this point in my studies. We have substituted the traditions of men for Scripture.

That took strength of integrity to admit. Nods.

First of all the linguistics prove that it doesn't say that from a common sense standpoint. Hebrew in 1000 BC can't really have a word for global can it? That would be so glaringly anachronistic seeing that they didn't know about the world beyond the Ancient Near East. Their cosmology would not have even allowed their language to contain the barest shade of the meaning of the word global. The word "earth" has a little 'e' in most Bible translations because it's not Earth...The Bible predates the idea of global anything such that a global flood cannot even be a universal interpretation because it didn't teach Christians in 500 AD to go looking for North America. It sounds like a modern overlay which enthusiastic people try and prove and really just fail at. This is like when we assumed the Hebrews were the slaves that built the pyramids but nobody talks about that one anymore. Thanks, Dr. Hawass.

There are so many physical problems with the idea of a global flood why... well... I probably don't have to go on too far on that one with you especially. You are an authority on the subject.

A local flood would have made much more sense and is supported by the presence of multiple local legends like Gilgamesh which all share details. I believe that there is some evidence for a local flood as well. For example:"Greg Neyman of Old Earth Ministries lays out the parameters:

The site of the flood would have to meet three requirements.

First, it would have to be capable of containing the waters of the flood. In order to do this, we need a basin, with no outlet to the sea. If there were an outlet, the water would simply run out of the area.

Second, the flood would have to fit the parameters mentioned in the Bible. The source of the waters is not in question. The only point that matters here is that Noah believed that the world was flooded, and that all the mountains were covered with water.

Neyman calculates that Noah, standing on the deck of the ark, would have been able to see a mountain 95 miles away. That gives us a ballpark estimate of how much area the flood would have to include to cover the highest mountains.

The final requirement is this: Does the proposed location agree with the geography mentioned in the Genesis account? It would have to flood the areas populated by mankind. We don't have many clues as to the extent of the geographic area. However, it would appear to include the area around the Garden of Eden, and east of the Garden."

If I haven't already linked this for you, let me share my playlist on how various studies disprove Noah's flood. In essence it agrees with what you're saying here. There was a local flood and the surrounding people wrote memorable legends about it.

"Faith means not wanting to know what is true." - Friedrich Nietzsche. "Faith is believing what you know ain't so." - Mark Twain

That word objective also means two completely different things when seen from different worldviews. The way a Christian uses objective is not the way an atheist would use it for much the same reasons magic and miracles seem so different. There isn't even an objective definition of objective.

Yes there is.

ob·jec·tive/əbˈjektiv/adjective

"(of a person or their judgment) not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts."-Google

"of, relating to, or being an object, phenomenon, or condition in the realm of sensible experience independent of individual thought and perceptible by all observers : having reality independent of the mind objective reality"-Merriam Webster

"When you do something objectively, you do it with an open mind, considering the facts rather than your personal feelings." -Vocabulary.com

1. (of a person or their judgment) not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts.‘historians try to be objective and impartial’ Contrasted with subjective1.1 Not dependent on the mind for existence; actual.‘a matter of objective fact’-Oxford Dictionary

"based on real facts and not influenced by personal beliefs or feelings:"-Cambridge Dictionary

Looks like there is an objective definition of objective.

I hate to cut in right here, because this is a very interesting discussion, but I actually agree with Mr. Lee insofar as there being no objective definition of objective. What you cited is not an objective definition. In fact, you cannot cite such a definition, because language itself is not objective.

Citing a dictionary, even multiple dictionaries, won't help. Dictionaries typically describe common usages, except perhaps in a specialized lexicon like most scientific disciplines have, where definitions are probably prescribed instead. The point is, whether a dictionary is acting as prescriptive or descriptive, there is always a measure of intersubjectivity in the language. If we all died at once, all these languages we speak would vanish, probably the only survivors being the dictionaries, which wouldn't even be useful to a visiting alien race except for the scientists among them studying the extinct lifeforms they would have found additional evidence of here.

I don't think this lends credence to Lee's overall position at all, but I do at least agree that there is no objective definition of objective, especially by these definitions. In fact, the idea that the definition of a word even can be objective doesn't make sense to me.

The very thing that gives us humans our advanced cognitive abilities can also be our greatest weakness.

Akamia wrote:I hate to cut in right here, because this is a very interesting discussion, but I actually agree with Mr. Lee insofar as there being no objective definition of objective. What you cited is not an objective definition. In fact, you cannot cite such a definition, because language itself is not objective.

Citing a dictionary, even multiple dictionaries, won't help. Dictionaries typically describe common usages, except perhaps in a specialized lexicon like most scientific disciplines have, where definitions are probably prescribed instead. The point is, whether a dictionary is acting as prescriptive or descriptive, there is always a measure of intersubjectivity in the language. If we all died at once, all these languages we speak would vanish, probably the only survivors being the dictionaries, which wouldn't even be useful to a visiting alien race except for the scientists among them studying the extinct lifeforms they would have found additional evidence of here.

I don't think this lends credence to Lee's overall position at all, but I do at least agree that there is no objective definition of objective, especially by these definitions. In fact, the idea that the definition of a word even can be objective doesn't make sense to me.

So I showed a consensus of definitions all reflecting that "objective" means "verifiable, based on fact, independent of personal opinions, contrasted with subjective", and you say this consensus doesn't exist because ...opinions? How does that change the fact that we all know and can show what this word definitely means. Why pretend that we're not really sure about that?

"Faith means not wanting to know what is true." - Friedrich Nietzsche. "Faith is believing what you know ain't so." - Mark Twain

AronRa wrote:So I showed a consensus of definitions all reflecting that "objective" means "verifiable, based on fact, independent of personal opinions, contrasted with subjective", and you say this consensus doesn't exist because ...opinions? How does that change the fact that we all know and can show what this word definitely means. Why pretend that we're not really sure about that?

I do not deny the consensus exists, but the consensus alone cannot make a definition of a word objective. Look at the definitions you supplied and notice how many of them also define objective to be independent of a mind, something that a word or its definition can never be itself. It only works because we use it between us. As I said, it is intersubjective, which is why there's a consensus; most of us who speak the language agree on it. Not because it's objective; English does not exist if no one is around to speak it. This even applies to those languages we consider "dead"; they still exist because even though no one speaks them today like they would a more modern language, they still see some measure of use and some people still study them, which would not happen if no one were around to do either.

What you can do is, objectively, find the definition of a word that is commonly used, which is what you do when you look at dictionaries. But the definition is not, itself, objective.

The very thing that gives us humans our advanced cognitive abilities can also be our greatest weakness.

leroy wrote:he_who_is_nobody Do you see my point? Do you see why is providing sources useless when dealing with fanatic atheist?

You provide one link that was not in English and another to a whole book? Why not help your cause out and find an English source and perhaps at least provide the relevant chapter from the book. Than you might have a point.

leroy wrote:he_who_is_nobody Do you see my point? Do you see why is providing sources useless when dealing with fanatic atheist?

You provide one link that was not in English and another to a whole book? Why not help your cause out and find an English source and perhaps at least provide the relevant chapter from the book. Than you might have a point.

Ok given that you didn’t like those sources, I will provide an other one

But again what difference does it makes? Aronra won’t admit his mistake and you wont even try to correct him because you are on his side

I would like to add the fact that Aronra is the who is asserting as fact that the myth of Adapa was plagiarized by the authors of Genesis. Shouldn’t he carry the burden proof and show that his assertions are true?

he_who_is_nobody wrote:You provide one link that was not in English and another to a whole book? Why not help your cause out and find an English source and perhaps at least provide the relevant chapter from the book. Than you might have a point.

Ok given that you didn’t like those sources, I will provide an other one

My liking them has nothing to do with this. You cited a whole book when you should cite a specific chapter in the book, since the book is not specifically about this topic. In addition, you cited a source that was not in English. I am sorry that this forum is populated by English speakers.

But again what difference does it makes? Aronra won’t admit his mistake and you wont even try to correct him because you are on his side

Look at that. You can provide a relevant citation. I am so proud of you. However, one has to wonder why you could not just cite the chapter in the book you cited earlier.

Well, AronRa, we have a rare case in which dandan/leroy actually provided a relevant citation to back one of his claims. Any rebuttal or do you accept the correction?

leroy wrote:I would like to add the fact that Aronra is the who is asserting as fact that the myth of Adapa was plagiarized by the authors of Genesis. Shouldn’t he carry the burden proof and show that his assertions are true?

Well, AronRa, we have a rare case in which dandan/leroy actually provided a relevant citation to back one of his claims. Any rebuttal or do you accept the correction?

.

I am also surprised I was not expecting such a mature reaction from your part

What? You made a claim and provide a relevant citation for it. This is what I have always expected from you. The fact that you can do that here, yet cannot in any other thread you have been apart of is telling.